Cover photo courtesy of Grand County Search and Rescue
Ralph had last been seen at 6:00 that morning when he left Meadow Creek Road to hunt elk in a hilly, partly timbered area of Grand County. His brother Jerry reported him missing at 6:30 that night. It was a cold, mid-November day, and Jerry worried that his brother was not prepared for the incoming weather, which was forecast to include strong winds, heavy snow, and a low temperature of 22 degrees overnight, rising to only 29 during the following day. To top it off, Ralph was also an insulin-dependent diabetic, according to his brother.
Volunteer incident commanders crowded around a laptop, discussing options. They had already determined the urgency of the search, interviewed Jerry, and created an online SARTopo map. Now they were discussing how their knowledge of lost person behavior would help them determine the perimeter of the search area, and how they would assign the incoming resources, which included six experienced ground searchers, three sheriff’s office deputies, two ATVs with riders, and one air scent dog team with a handler and flanker.
If this were a real search, the next step would be for the incident commanders to calculate the probability of a find in each of the search areas and prepare a briefing for the searchers. But, while based on a real search from 2014, these incident commanders are actually students in CSAR’s Basic Search Management (BSM) class.
CSAR has been providing the class to Colorado backcountry search and rescue volunteers, in different iterations, since the 1980s. In the early days it was called Managing the Search Function and was taught completely on paper.
“We used the same scenarios for 20 years,” says Greg Foley, one of the current BSM instructors, “because it took special large mylar-covered topographical maps and we had to drag around a kit with ten sets of them in a huge box.” In the early days, the class was conducted entirely in person on two consecutive weekends for ten hours a day, and CSAR would move it around to different locations in the state. For many years, the teaching didn’t change much, but gradually the approaches became more scientific as more was learned from search statistics.
In 2020, Covid changed everything. Search management practices had already moved online, but now the teaching of the class had to go digital too, including all the Incident Command System (ICS) forms used by the students. Today, the class consists of seven virtual evening sessions taught over a seven week period on Zoom, followed by one in-person weekend class. The classes rely heavily on hands-on practice and less on lecture. 2026 graduate Steve Lanaghen, from Boulder Emergency Squad, says, “The ability of the scenarios to keep our attention and keep the intensity up for hours gave us a real world feeling. One of my group mates said during the final session, ‘My heart rate never got below 90 that whole day.’”
The goal of BSM is to teach how to get a search started in the first operational period, and how to hand it off so a second crew doesn’t have to repeat anything. CSAR also offers an Advanced Search Management class, aimed at handling searches going into a second operational period, which typically get more complicated as family begins to show up and the sheriff’s office gets more involved.
Melissa Harth, a co-captain for Custer County Search and Rescue, took the course in 2024. “It was really rigorous,” she says, “and a significant time commitment. We would start a project in class, working in small groups on a scenario, and then have to finish it as homework before the next class. It must be a significant commitment for the instructors, too, who sit in on every group to answer questions and provide guidance.” A total of ten volunteer instructors are involved in each offering of BSM.
During the in-person session, which has been held in Leadville for the past few years, students are given a final scenario in which the instructor sits in as the reporting party and doesn’t give any support or feedback at all. Then the group receives what Melissa describes as “tough feedback.”
“In my class, for example, one group was told, ‘you would never have fielded any of your resources because you forgot to get an avalanche report from the CAIC,’’” she says.
BSM graduates say one of the most gratifying things about taking the class is being able to put it into practice on a real search. Ashley Borre, training director for Park County Search and Rescue, just graduated from the 2026 class and said she’s excited to put her knowledge to use on cold cases her sheriff was recently asked to work on by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. “It will be a great way to get some practice with less pressure than we would have during a current search,” she says.
Melissa Harth recalls telling her instructor, current program manager Reese Irwin, that filling out the mountain of ICS forms used during the class seemed excessive and unnecessary, but he countered that they were needed. “Just do them,” he told her. Shortly after that, Melissa found herself in charge of a major search for a missing worker near Bishop’s Castle in the Wet Mountains. She called Reese at 2:00 am, looking for help. “Reese and some of the state coordinators walked me through the initial resource requests for the search, and I ended up using every single form I had complained about to effectively manage the incident,” she says. “There’s no way I could have done it without the class. I don’t imagine many teams could provide this education themselves. My team certainly couldn’t; we just don’t do enough searches.”
Another element of the class students appreciate is the interagency networking opportunities it provides. “It keeps us from being in our little bubble, believing we’re doing everything right,” says Steve Lanaghen. Melissa adds, “The relationship building that happens through these classes is probably the most valuable thing for me. Now that I know this person, I can call them anytime and we can speak the same language when we’re working together during mutual aid searches.”
In the 2026 class, Steve and some of his classmates noticed that entering information into the many ICS spreadsheets repeatedly was burdensome. “If you’re working on the hood of a car,” he says, “you have no choice. But if you have the internet, the tools are awkward to work with. We should make this part easier, not just for the class but for real operations.”
Working with a group of his classmates, he pitched the instructors to let them rework the spreadsheets. “These spreadsheets come from the federal government, right?” he says. “Much of it isn’t relevant until you get to the level of a federal incident, so why not start with forms that collect what you really need, and then expand as the incident grows?” The instructors were all for it, and the group began work on a 15-question form to start a search with. Mike Kabjian from Boulder Emergency Squad is using AI to prototype an app, and both he and Steve are integrating AI into the search planning to help with search assignment suggestions and investigations into the planning hierarchy. The group will then work with BSM instructors to see if this meets their needs and can be incorporated into future classes. Trevin Montano, BSM instructor and a CSAR state coordinator, will also work with the other state coordinators to see if these new processes can help improve their searches when they expand beyond the local level.
What about the missing hunter, Ralph? He was not found during the search, neither in the BSM scenario nor in the actual search it was based on. Ranchers found his body the following spring. But that doesn’t mean the original searchers and the BSM students were not successful. “A successful search does not depend on finding the subject,” says Greg Foley, “but on initiating and fulfilling a comprehensive search operation with the highest probability of success, and enabling future operational periods by using defined strategies and tactics and providing documentation to support the Incident Action Plan.” Melissa points out that not finding the subject is tough on the volunteers, mentally and emotionally. But it’s important to recognize that success must depend on the efforts that are fully within the capabilities of the volunteers, and not on factors beyond their control. We do everything within our power to find those who have gone missing in the Colorado backcountry, and BSM is a key part of making sure responders have the tools they need to do just that.
